Russians flood Greek consulate for visas

More than 10,000 requests to travel this weekend
The Greek Consulate in Moscow says it cannot cope with the deluge of passports given by Russians wanting to travel to Greece for the public holidays at the start of May. The flood of applications is the direct result of Russia’s travel bans on Egypt and Turkey.
The consulate is able to process around 800 passports a day but has received in excess of 10,000.
“It’s easy to calculate how many days are needed to issue 10,000 visas. Employees do not have enough time to handle this number of incoming requests,” commented Irina Tyurina, spokeswoman for the Russian Union of the Travel Industry.
There are two centres for Greek visas in Moscow, each of which can handle around 400 visitors daily. But last Friday the number of applicants totalled 2,600. Many waited in line for five hours or more, hoping to leave Russia in time for this coming weekend.Interfax / The Moscow Times